On the heels of our Hiring Meeting, I felt that this article sums up much of what we talked about. The article talks about how there currently isn't formal training on how to use Automation and Email Marketing, which is why the market is difficult to hire for. The people you are looking for have a broad range of talents and willingness to learn.

I was in a similar situation early in my career. I taught myself Photoshop and Illustrator when you could only undo once in photoshop and layers was your ability to revert to previous changes. At the time everyone thought they could design because it was now easy. Universities, quickly learned that this was a high demand area and started promoting graphic design and flooded the market with those with basic skills. The price for production artists has gone down, but the need for quality designers is still high, as they are rare.

Moving from print to websites, I found a similar situation as I was learning HTML and CSS in the early 2000s. If you could update your Myspace page you could get a job, some in the 6 figures. The supply of those who understood how to code were very small. Unlike with design, few felt they could do it and everyone understood the importance of a quality website. Schools once again saw an opportunity to capitalize and promote web design. The market now has many front end developers, both as the coding as become easier and more are being trained. With more people entering the market the pay for entry level isn't were it once was.

Now Email/Automation Marketing is in same the situation. The market is as slim as the talent is wide in ability. The demand is high as Email and Automation can be tied directly to higher sales and demand generation, by delivering content that is relevant, timely and how a customer wishes. In the next few years, I expect schools to catch on, hire anyone who claims to be a marketing automation specialist and pump out hoards of young adults with basic training on how to create campaigns. Even after the schools find that Marketing Automation is something they can sale, those that have been in the space for the last 5 years, still working solo, or with a partner will now be training teams and you will see even more innovation be the result as more bandwidth will be spent on ways to improve the customer experience and really push the capabilities of the platforms to their limits.

This is an exciting time to be in on the cutting edge of marketing. I expect the next big change in marketing will be data. Look to start seeing marketing departments take control of the data with the creation of new departments around data governance, that are closely tied to marketing. As machine learning and AI are used more heavily marketing departments will need access and have more control over how data is handled. We are just starting to see the beginnings of this take place today. This is just the beginning.

As you are looking for a solid marketing automation specialist, depending on your situation be thinking of how this person will grow with the industry. be looking for someone who can send emails, create campaigns, solve problems, understand databases, be analytical and be able to tell a good story. Then plan for this person in the next 5 years to also have to be a leader training those graduating in the next 5 years to build a team to be able to do all the above, so that they can start looking to improve you instance and start pushing the limits of these massive platforms.

I created this image as part of a discovery presentation to show how all of our core systems work together.

Obviously, we went with the best in class Marketing Automation Platform, Marketo. Marketo was able to connect all of our systems and gives us the greatest control. Feel free to use the infographic for your own presentations. I have posted a blank one on the Tampa St/Pete Blog.

Just like in 1980 and again in the less good Blues Brothers 2000, we are getting the band back together. Though the leaders of the band are different we hope many of you will return. Our first comeback meeting is next month, July 18th at the Bank of the Ozark Innovation Labs in St Pete. More information can be found on the event page. In the meantime, we have created additional ways to stay informed and up to date. You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook and we created a Tampa/St Pete Blog. Welcome back to the Tampa/St Pete MUG.

My colleague Tom Grubb recently wrote a blog entitled “A better way to hold Marketo leads back from Salesforce”. Over the years, many clients have asked us for advice on the best method of syncing leads between Marketo and Salesforce, when the goal is to assign them to a salesperson only when they are qualified.

There are several methods of conditional syncing, some of which I outlined in an article from last year, but I think Tom hit the nail on the head when he advises not to hold back leads from syncing to Salesforce.com at all. Instead, he suggests that all are synced, but not assigned to a sales person until they are qualified.

This blog is a follow-up example of Tom’s method of re-assigning new leads from a queue to a salesperson after they qualify. While there are multiple methods that can accomplish a lead re-assignment, I chose this simple method because it a) can be triggered using logic of your choosing; and b) uses the standard Salesforce.com Assignment Rules.

Step 1: Gather the Information you need before starting

Get your queue ID. You can find it in Admin > Manage Users > Queues. Click on the name of the queue you are using and copy the ID from the browser address bar. Ours is “00GA0000000USx5”. Note that the browser address bar only contains the beginning of the queue ID, minus the 3-digit code. I want to point this out as it will come into play in a moment.

Step 2: Create a Re-Assignment Apex Class

Navigate to Admin > Develop > Apex Classes, click on the New button, and paste in the following code, and then click the Save button.

Header 1

// Digital Pi - This Apex class is used to reassign a lead using standard assignment rules

Click on the “Add Object” link and select the “Lead” object from the Object picklist. Select the “when a record is created or edited” choice under “Start the Process”. This is telling your process to execute whenever a record is new or an existing record is modified.

Click the Save button.

Next click the diamond shaped true/false step to enter in the criteria that executes the update. This is where you will need your Queue ID that we found in Step 1. Set the name of your step function. I chose “In Queue and Revenue Stage = MQL” as a descriptive way of describing the criteria that this step is looking for.

Now you can set the two filters:

Lead.OwnerId STARTS WITH “00GA0000000USx5”. Remember, we use STARTS WITH instead of EQUALS because Saleforce appends IDs with a 3-digit code that is not shown in the browser address bar. Note: you can use DataLoader to get the full Queue ID if you prefer to use it, but this will work fine.

Lead.Revenue_Stage EQUALS “MQL”

Choose the default values for “Conditions are met” and “All of the conditions are met (AND)”. Finally, click Save.

The next step will be the configuration of the “Immediate Actions” logic that calls the Apex code, which re-assigns the lead to a salesperson.

The last step is to press the Activate button, and then test the process. Remember, you can invoke you new “Re-run Assigment Rules on Lead” Apex Class in any number of scenarios by building new processes with process builder.

So, can you say analytics. Well, this week, analytics are wreaking havoc on my team and my world. Why? Well, we may have uncovered leads that were untouched over the course of the the past 12 months. Not just a few, like thousands. Why? Well, in working with sales, some of these were actually called but absolutely no documentation in Salesforce so they look untouched. Some were just rejected upon first glance. Some were just routed wrong. So what to do?

First, the exec team and I created a task force to deal with the issue. This led to me delivering a 6 hour lead management workshop to get the exec team, sales and marketing all on the same page. Out of that six hour workshop, we discovered several things:

We all have different views on what is a lead

We have different views on quality of leads

We have different views on how sales should/could follow up with leads

We have different views on timelines for follow up

We have different views on how lead scoring should be done

Ultimately, we all agreed something must be done. The CEO stepped in and worked tirelessly to help manage the project. Both Marketing and Sales Ops teams were rallied together to solve the situation. To solve the above, here are the steps we took:

Came up with common definitions

Developed a mutually agreed on quality and lead score process

Created SLA's for both sales and marketing

Created a Salesforce dashboard to monitor lead decay

Communicated with Sales teams that all activity must now be in Salesforce or it doesn't count

Created a user adoption challenge with rewards for the sales team

Hired and trained a lead scrub team to increase the quality of leads

Created worldwide dashboards that both sales and marketing use together

What came of all this? Well, it was definitely uncomfortable for all involved to say the least. Change is never easy. We had communications. We had stumbled over each other at times. There were requirements and timelines that made it almost impossible. But, today, we are converting about 30% more leads, driving more revenue and having a better customer experience than ever before. Why? Because, whether we like it or not, we are more efficient, less noise for the sales reps and better quality leads moving through the system.

Remember, it takes a village. You must involve all key stakeholders and stay on top of it. It's not easy, but it is possible.

Whew, the weeks are flying by. This week I was wholly focused on getting my two new recruits hired and offers signed. How did I do this in 7 short days? Well, this is not for the faint of heart. First, I made fast friends with HR to find out their policy around recruiting, their process and to ensure I was following protocols as much as possible...Did you get that last part -- as much as possible.

Well, we use a platform to track all candidates like many companies. The resumes coming in that applied for the jobs were well, less than desirable. Thus, I went to my network on Linked In. I knew I had to have the best of the best if we are going to take this ship into journeys far and wide. Thus, I started looking for Marketo champions on the marketo site and then cross-referenced their Linked in Profile. I was truly looking for someone who understand the MarTech stack and how it all fit together. I wasn't merely seeking someone who can send out a campaign...I was seeking a person who understood how the technology translates to business decisions. I also needed a Lead Development team member and a marketing analyst. So here are the steps:

1. Ensure compliance with HR policies is a must.

2. I sourced candidates I felt were good on Linked In and through the Marketo community.

3. I did pre-screen calls.

4. I entered the top three candidates into our HR system.

5. I invited the top two in for peer interviews and to evaluate myself on how they responded to situational questions.

6. I had a conversation with the candidate about what they were expecting to make a job change.

7. I made an offer with HR.

8. I watched the offer until it was released to the candidate. One of the offers got stuck and I was able to make some calls to get it unstuck quickly.

9. I reached out to the candidate personally to invite questions.

10. I received a signed agreement.

Remember, there are several keys to this process. Speed is of utmost importance when you are finding talent that is searching on the down low. It is important to move candidates through the process quickly so you don't lose the excitement. Next, it is really important to ensure you and the candidate are in the same financial ballpark. If not, you end up getting false hopes and expectations mis-matched. Lastly, follow through with the process. Own it. Remember, HR is there to support you, but ultimately, having the ideal team is up to the leader. Take it from a leader who knows how important a team is, find your candidates and build the team that you have dreamed. Oh, as of this blog, my last candidate has already signed the agreement. My team in place -- check.

Keep an eye out for future weeks and I will share our journey as we become the Center of Excellence as a Marketing Operations team that others dream of creating. Let's do this.

Okay folks, this is crude, rude and down and dirty. The real stories from behind the curtain of a Director of Marketing Operations of a global organization. It will feature the fumbles, the trials, the tribulations and the successes. It is a real look at what a day in the life looks like. For the next 12 weeks I will post my journey in hopes that I might help someone else out with lessons learned.

Week One.

I started this week reviewing an audit that our consulting company did. I asked a lot of questions. Note to self, asking questions is and excellent way to peel the onion and see what's truly inside. As I asked more and more questions, I realized we had a big road ahead. Between dirty data, lead routing and lead management opportunities, the room for possibility seemed to grow by the second. So now what?

I knew I had to prioritize. So here is how I chose to look at my first week:

1. Dive into the Data. Get to know the data intimately. How did I do this? I ran tests and more tests. I followed the breadcrumbs as I discovered yet more areas of opportunity. Code that some thought should be working was not. Leads flowed to places they shouldn't. Good leads, the golden nuggets, were getting buried alive. I had to know this data inside and out.

2. Create a Lead Management Playbook. At the very least, get everyone on the same page as everyone else about lead definitions and the lead lifecycle. I began to ask questions. Remember, questions are your key to getting the gold. I realized that many people had many different opinions about what is a good lead. I interviewed sales, SDR teams, marketing and exec's. I received as many different variations as I asked. This told me we had a communication opportunity for improvement. The playbook isn't done by any means, but hey, it's a great start.

3. Fourth quarter blues...Figure out anyway possible to clear the runway for a strong fourth quarter. Get rid of as much dirty data that was clogging the pipes as possible. Remove any dirt that was covering the gold. How did I do this? I worked with a few SDR sales reps to call out on potential golden nuggets. The first few times were a disaster as we ended up calling 10 year old kids. Next, we got a little warmer. Finally, we hit some gold. Now, how to duplicate that.

Here's to the next week. Message me your scary stories and perhaps they can be in another episode of Diaries of a Marketing Ops Director!

Per one of our conversation topics at our user group meeting today, I wanted to share with you a spreadsheet that I've used when laying the foundation for attribution reporting. The first step in determining first-touch and multi-touch attribution is setting up your channels in Marketo properly so you can capture the information you need to populate your attribution reports.

The attached spreadsheet is just an example of how some of these channels could be set up and how you may (or may not) use tags to get a more granular look into different aspects of your channel's performance. The document has really helped me in the past better communicate with my team and provide insight to others into how our instance is set up.

I suggest you sit down with your executives (or whoever is requesting marketing campaign performance reporting) to determine KPIs. With your KPI's in mind, you'll be able to lay the foundation for your channels so you can start reporting on attribution. As we talked about, be aware of analysis paralysis - keep it simple

Want to learn more about the new Marketo community? The slides and recording of the July 23 webinar with Elizabeth Oseguera and Scott Wilder (How to get the most out of the new Marketing Nation Community) are available.